Second Spring Limited edition

Chris' Soundtrack Corner proudly presents for the first time the complete soundtrack

to Second Spring, a West German/Italian coproduction released in 1975, written and

directed by Ulli Lommel (1944-2017). Lommel is considered one of the most consistently

creative filmmakers to come from the New German Cinema, with 65 credits as

director in a variety of genres. The movie stars Curd Jürgens as womanizing bon vivant

who has finally come to terms with growing old and decided to settle down and enjoy

his second spring by marrying Gertrud (Irmgard Schönberg, in her only film credit),

a beautiful woman several decades his junior. But when Fox returns to his womanizing

ways, Gertrud withdraws from him and discards her husband's companionship

altogether, flagrantly exhibiting her own sexual appetites for younger and wilder liaisons

of both genders, which inevitably leads to a grievous confrontation with her aged

husband.

The entire score to Second Spring was a mix of original music and library tracks by the

highly prolific and accomplished Italian composer Stelvio Cipriani (1937-2018). He

had actually composed a fairly extensive original score for the film, but, unaccountably,

most of it was replaced by library tracks for the film's final mix, with only a few

cues from the original score remaining in the film. As a result, the film score is quite a

curiosity; its soundtrack remains effective and quite lovely, with both the previouslyused

tracks and the bits of original cues left in the film providing a melodic wash of

romantic fragrance and appealing soft jazz in the composer's finest form.

The music for Second Spring thus remains an interesting oddity in the composer's

filmography. Cipriani composed fifteen motion pictures in 1975 - of which Second

Spring proved to be one of his most persuasive and melodic scores, even with more

than half of its musical content tracked in from previous scores. The topic of the film

is not unusual: Cipriani had scored a number of sex-comedies and dramas in Italy

and Germany during the 1970s, and he'd had library tracks originating from previously-

composed films show up regularly in new movies, including the same year's

Spanish crime thriller, Metralleta Stein, which is being released concurrently by Chris'

Soundtrack Corner. But Second Spring is unusual in that Cipriani had composed at

least a large portion of its score already, and found those cues removed in favor of an

almost wholly recycled soundtrack.

Chris' Soundtrack Corner is pleased to make the Second Spring soundtrack available,

especially its previously unheard tracks, for the first time. This album is produced

by Christian Riedrich and mastered by Stefan Betke. The CD is accompanied by a

12-page illustrated booklet designed by Aletta Heinsohn featuring detailed, exclusive

notes on the film and its score by film music journalist Randall D. Larson, who deconstructs

the score's elements in detail.